Monday - Friday, 6-9 a.m.

Host Tom Temin brings you the latest news affecting the federal community each weekday morning, featuring interviews with top government executives and contractors. Listen live from 6 to 9 a.m. or download archived interviews below.

Email this article to a friend

Friday federal headlines - July 19, 2013

Friday - 7/19/2013, 10:36am EDT

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal
Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp discuss throughout the show each day. The
Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the
stories you hear on the air.

A high level cyber official is leaving the Homeland Security Department. Bruce McConnell, who's been there
four years in several positions, tells staff he'll return to the private sector in
August. McConnell served as the senior counselor and director of strategy and
policy for DHS's National Programs and Protections Directorate. At the moment he
is acting deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity, replacing Mark Weatherford, who
left in April. Published reports say Phyllis Schneck, a McAfee executive, will be
named to replace Weatherford. McConnell will be the fourth senior executive at DHS
to resign since January. Secretary Janet Napolitano leaves in September to become
president of the University of California.
(Federal News Radio)

A bipartisan group of 81 members of Congress introduced nine good-government
bills. They would fix everything from bulk purchasing to legislative inertia. The
Duplication Elimination Act would require the president and Congress to cooperate
in consolidating duplicate federal programs. The No Adding, No Padding Act would
make it harder for agencies to raise budgets beyond the inflation rate. Other
bills push strategic sourcing, cut federal travel and penalize Congress for not
finishing its budgeting work. (Federal News Radio)

The Senate plugged two more
vacancies in President Obama's second-term cabinet. The votes came after an
agreement earlier in the week to avert a filibuster showdown. Thomas Perez, a top
Justice Department official, will become Secretary of Labor. He was confirmed in a
54 to 46 party-line vote. Gina McCarthy was confirmed as administrator of the EPA.
She had some Republican yes votes. (Associated Press)

House Republican leaders are ending their court battle over a gay marriage law
similar to the Defense of Marriage Act. By doing so, the GOP removes a key hurdle
in gay veterans' fight for benefits for their spouses. The House Bipartisan Legal
Advisory Group has represented the Republicans in these cases. According to BuzzFeed, the group is withdrawing from a
Massachusetts case brought by gay veterans, in which they challenged benefits
statutes that banned recognition of gay marriage. The GOP had defended the law.
(BuzzFeed)

The National Security Agency is implementing new security measures it hopes will
prevent more Edward-Snowden-style leaks. A two-man rule will require any network
administrator accessing secret information to do so only in the presence of a
second admin. But NSA Chief Keith Alexander tells an employee forum, getting the
change rolled out will take time. That's because NSA has 15,000 sites to update.
Server rooms, which are normally locked, will require two people to open them.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says the changes will also apply to
Pentagon systems. (Associated Press)

The hacker collective Anonymous says it has gotten the passwords to some
Capitol Hill emails and made a mess of them. Anonymous tweeted that it did it to
protest the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. A Senate systems
administrator told the Atlantic Wire it's not so bad. Hackers disclosed more than
300 Senate email addresses and passwords. But some of those accounts expired long
ago. A company used by lawmakers to send mass constituent letters admits that it
was hacked. (The Atlantic Wire)

The Navy and Air Force are getting tougher on service members who commit
sexual assault. The Navy is spending $10 million to hire 50 more criminal
investigators. Secretary Ray Mabus is ordering both the Navy and Marine Corps to
post online the results of every court martial. The Air Force says it now
discharges Airmen who commit sexual assault. It also requires top commanders to
review actions on those criminal cases. Meanwhile, Arlington prosecutors have dropped a sexual battery charge against
the Air Force officer who led the service's sexual assault response unit. Instead,
they've charged Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski with assault. (Associated
Press)

A new bill would
extend federal hiring preferences to National Guard and reserve members. The
Military Reserve Jobs Act would give them front-of-line privileges similar to
those now extended to other veterans. The bill has bipartisan sponsors in the
House and Senate. Former reserve component members would receive three, four, or
five points of preference on their applications, depending on length of service.
Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly says 70 percent of reservists don't qualify now for
veterans preference because they haven't seen combat. (Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-
Ind.))

A labor union representing 50,000 Defense Department employees continues its
push
to repeal furloughs. The National Federation of Federal Employees is urging
Congress to pass an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act. The measure would
not save all defense civilians from having to take unpaid days off. Instead, it
focuses on the 180,000 who are paid out of a working capital fund rather than
operations. The union says, make no mistake; it opposes all furloughs.
(National Federation of Federal Employees)

The deputy Peace Corps director is getting a promotion. President Obama says
he'll nominate Carolyn Hessler Radelet to
the top job. She joined the Peace Corps in 2010. She's had a variety of federal,
non-profit and private sector jobs since her last Peace Corps stint. She was
public affairs manager at the Corps Boston regional office in the mid 1980s.
Hessler Radelet was a volunteer in Western Samoa for two years before that.
(Associated Press)

Employees at the Securities and Exchange Commission aren't too happy these
days, and that could be hurting the agency. The warning comes from the Government
Accountability Office. It says employees complain about low morale, and they don't
trust management. They say the organization is hierarchical, risk-averse and
compartmentalized. The auditors say the SEC is dilly dallying on some workforce
basics, such as career development and performance management systems. GAO says it
launched the investigation following some high-profile
enforcement failures at the SEC. (Government Accountability Office)